At the coldest point in the day, Joanna Atkins emerges from her home: a converted shipping container sitting on the back of a road train, parked on the side of a dirt track in the middle of the Kimberley.

Joanna walks to the fire still smouldering from the evening, where her dog Lin is curled up. She adds some kindling to take the chill away.

Brewing tea on a camp stove is a morning ritual. Joanna’s husband Nick joins her for the cuppa, but they sit in silence, occasionally smiling at Lin who the couple thinks is a “pretty weird dog”.

“We gave up talking years ago,” Joanna says. “We know each other and know what we have to do.”

Nick and Joanna’s work can only begin once the last rains have gone, and the road has dried out enough to support their 70-tonne road train.

The first run is always the hardest.

This year, the couple took a risk and went in the first week of May. It took eight days instead of the usual five because parts of the dirt road were washed away.

As Nick and Joanna head north, they are both drivers and mechanics. Sometimes they have to get out of the truck and use a loader or their bare hands to rebuild the road before moving any further.

The work is physical and unrelenting.

“If we don’t do it, who will?” Joanna says.

“Other companies wouldn’t bother with this run. It’s too rough on their gear, too slow going and not profitable enough.”

For Joanna and Nick, their work is more than a job. It’s a way of life.

Many remote communities in Western Australia have poor access to services and essential items, as well as failing infrastructure.

Nick sees this neglect play out every year. The whole track is a lifeline for hundreds of people who live along it but he says the only sections of road that are maintained are the ones used by tourists.

Some small Indigenous communities in Western Australia are in jeopardy after the former state government questioned their viability and called for dozens to be shut down.

Kalumburu Aboriginal Corporation director Doreen Unghango believes the road has been neglected by the state government and councils for years.

“Tourists and people get access, but after you come up to Kalumburu past Mitchell Plateau turn off, it is a bit corrugated, creeks are washed away,” she says.

“The shire doesn’t come right up to Kalumburu community to do that.

“If the road is in bad condition, we can’t go out to visit family and fulfil cultural obligations. Often, we just can’t go out bush.”

Only in the last few months, after years of being overlooked, the road is finally receiving the maintenance it needs because of record numbers of tourists heading to the North Kimberley Coast. “I am determined to keep the road open for the community itself because the Government is not going to,” Nick says.

Creeks along the way are oases. After many hours at the wheel, the couple pull up and wash the red dust out of their hair.

They don’t venture far into the water for fear of crocodiles. Occasionally tourists towing caravans pass and wave while Nick and Joanna relax in the water.

Once the sun sets and the flies are gone, the mosquitos attack. Veggies are chopped roughly on the back of the ute tray. A simple dinner is cooked on a camp fire. The night is spent in what Joanna calls their “little house”, the shipping container without windows.

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